Feb blogfests and comps I heart

Hey there writer friends!

This is just a quick post to let you know about some fun and exciting blogfests and comps I've come across and am participating, and I thought you might like to know about them too! (I've come across these from a few different sources, but one I've just discovered is Sharon's blog The Blue Word. She does a monthly post on blogfests and comps in the writing realm.)

There's the Valentines Blog Event being hosted by Brodie at Eleusinian Mysteries and Lisa from Read Me Bookmark Me Love Me. It's a month long event with all sorts of fun games and AMAZING book prizes. Seriously. Check them out.

Operation Awesome is hosting their monthly Mystery Agent contest. I don't think I'm going to enter this one because I'm not quite ready, but hey, there's always next month!

The I'm Hearing Voices blogfest, hosted by Angela at Live to Write and Cassie at Reading, Writing and Loving It, is a great character study done in three parts. A very good way to get to know your characters a little better (especially the elusive ones that don't like to talk to you) and there are also some great prizes on offer.

And of course there's the Get Fired Up blogfest, which I've already talked about here. Don't forget, if you're a new blogger in need of a little guidance, I (and all the others who have signed up for this blogfest) are always happy to help.

Have you found any awesome comps or blogfests this month? I'd love to hear about them. Will you be participating in any of these?

Hello, my name's Sari and I've been a Tweeter for ten months...

...with no sign of giving it up any time soon.

And anyway, why would I want to? Since I've been on Twitter, I have:

• made new writing friends
• found new agents, publishers, editors and authors to stalk (not creepy, I promise)
• gotten new traffic to the blog
• been directed to a number of amazing and helpful articles on writing that I never would have found by myself
• been able to chat in live time with real agents, and get their advice
• participated in Tweet chats on the craft of writing (my favourite is #YAlitchat)
• been directed to jobs and internships to apply for.

Before I signed up for Twitter I thought it was just another way for 14-year-old girls to write in 140 characters or less what they had for lunch that day, and to stalk Justin Bieber. When I signed up, I was sceptical at best about what I would get out of Twitter. But I thought I may as well check out what all the fuss was about. As you can see, I'm glad I did.

 

I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned about using Twitter from the perspective of an aspiring writer building her platform. A guide from a non-expert, you might call it.

 

~ If you haven't signed up yet, go do it! You're missing out on a world of new contacts, information and advice. Make sure your Twitter account isn't private. The whole idea of Twitter is connecting with people, and putting up this major roadblock won't help.

~ Once you're the owner of a shiny new account, before you do anything else, write your bio and upload a picture. (If you have a Twitter account already and haven't done this step, I recommend doing this now).

If I get an email saying I have a new Twitter follower, and that person has no bio and no picture, usually I just delete without following them back. Why? Because they haven't made the effort, so why should I? There are gazillions of worthy people to follow on Twitter, so make it easy for people to want to follow you. Here are some tips from social media expert Marian Schembari on writing your Twitter bio.

~ Sign up for TweetDeck or similar program. Trust me, if you use the Twitter website for tweeting, you'll never discover how awesome Twitter can be.

~ Before you start following people, send a few tweets. Post a link to a helpful blog post you've found. Search the #amwriting or #writing hashtags and send some encouragement to someone who's hit a writing milestone. Say something about your own writing for the day. Why do you do this before following people? The second thing I do after checking the bio to decide if I will follow someone is to check their Tweetstreem. If there's nothing there it's hard to tell if this is the sort of person I want to follow or not.
 
~ Follow! Search Twitter for writers, agents, publishers and whoever else you want to follow. Visit your favourite blogs and see if there is a link to the blogger's Twitter page. Check out the 'following' lists of the people you follow and follow some of the same people. Don't go overboard to start off with. You don't want a 'following' to 'follower' ratio of 1000 to 10.

~ Learn about hashtags and how to use them. Here's a list of hashtags for writers.

~ Participate in Twitter chats for writers. You learn heaps and meet heaps of cool people.

~ Keep your tweets balanced. Talk to people, post interesting articles, post links to your own blog posts, post updates in general. Try not to focus on any one of these.

The last thing I look at when deciding if I will follow is what a person is tweeting about. If their feed is full of self-promotion and links to their own blog, I don't follow. If their feed is full of updates to the world, but no actual interaction with other people, I don't follow. If their feed is full of links and RTs (retweets of other's posts), I don't follow.

This might sound a bit strict, but again there are so many people to choose from in Twitterland, and I'm there to meet and interact with people, not to be tweeted at or bombarded with links. It's like writing a good character: the reader needs to connect with you before they care what you have to say.

~ Have fun!

Also, here's a post from Marian Schembari on why you might be struggling to get followers, this Twitter Guide for Writers by @inkyelbows is a great resource, and Kristen Lamb has a regular Twitter Tuesday post with lots of good info.

Have you signed up for Twitter? What's the best thing that's happened to you since you started using it? Are you just starting? Is there anything you find confusing?

My favourite things I learnt last week from the writing bloggerverse... aka weekly mashup

I have a list saved to My Favourites in my browser called the Daily Clicks. As the name suggests, every day I go through the daily clicks and see what's new. Most people would use a feed reader to do this, but I prefer to actually go to the blog or web page and see all the pretty shiny things that the creator has put there.

So I thought I'd do a post on my favourite things learnt this week in my exploration of the writing webs.


1.  Janet Reid and Writer Beware both posted on the dangers of competition clauses, and one competition in particular. Long story short, if you are considering entering any sort of writing comp, read the fine print in full. And if you see anything like this:

By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation.

Run. Run away fast and far. And don't part with your hard earned dollars to enter a competition that basically means you've granted the competition holder the right to use your work in any way without notifying or compensating you. Not. Good.


2.   Shallee McArthur came up with the idea to do a What's Your Writing Process Blogfest. In her words:

...blog about ANY part of your writing process-- how you create characters, how you plot your novel, how you organize your rewrites, your whole writing process from start to finish, anything.

The blogfest is scheduled for Tuesday the 18th, which for me is now, but for most of the participants is tomorrow, so I thought I'd compromise by posting tonight.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up. Share your process so we can learn from you.

Aplogies to the guys,
couldn't help myself.



3.   The discovery of Kristen Lamb's blog. She's a writer and social media guru, and blogs about both. I only came across her blog a couple of days ago (via Twitter) and I've already discovered so much good information. My favourite so far is how to take on the Procrastination Pixie. Excellent advice. I've been practicing using the word 'No' every time my mouse wanders toward the facebook/twitter/gratuitous pictures of Ben Barnes button when writing, and so far with good results.

If you're a blogger she also has this awesome series of posts on getting started and staying in the game. More great advice and worth checking out. And yes I'm trying to take that advice. I will blog more regularly. Promise.


4.   Ok, this one's on a more serious note. I've been meaning to blog about this all week, so now's as good a time as any. Author Saundra Mitchell tackles the topic of illegal ebook downloads in her post '"Free" Books Aren't Free'. A quick quote:

I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

If the 800+ downloads a week of my book were only HALF converted into sales, I would earn out in one more month. But I’m never going to earn out.

I would recommend reading the whole thing. It really.. sucks (for want of a better word) reading stuff like this. I know no one reading this post would download an ebook, because we're all writers, but we can all help to educate. There are plenty of people out there who don't realise the damage they're doing by downloading an ebook, and they could be our friends or family. So let them know. I'm sure they'll be want to spend a few dollars on books in future.


5.   Not really blogging, but favourite Twitter hashtags this week: #YALitChat, #AskAgent and #AmWriting. Great places for advice, encouragement, and finding like-minded people. Twitter is an invaluable resource for writers, so if you're not there, go to it.


And that's that. My list of favourite (and not so favourite in some cases) things learned and heard this week.

What have you learnt this week? What gems have made a difference to your writing day? Or just your day in general?